Embodiments of the invention relate to electronic interview methods, systems and computer program products, which may utilized as part of an interview engine of a tax preparation application operable to prepare electronic tax returns.
Tax return preparation programs have become very popular and allow a user, such as an individual, taxpayer, accountant, or tax professional, to prepare and electronically file a tax return using a computer. Known tax preparation programs present a list of tax-related questions or data entry fields to the user as a series of interview screens or fillable forms. In certain tax preparation applications, the sequence of questions or interview screens presented is based on a pre-determined, programmed question-and-answer tree structure. As a simplified example, the programmed tree structure may dictate that if the user answers Question 1 with Answer A, then an interview engine proceeds to Question 2, else if the user answers Question 1 with Answer B, then the interview engine proceeds to Question 3, and so on according to the programmed tree structure. Thus, as the user enters data or responds to certain questions, the tree structure remains the same, and the tree structure dictates which questions to ask next or which interview screen or sequence of screens to present next.
For example, in an individual tax return, certain interview screens or questions may involve personal and family matters such as name, address, social security number, marital status, number of dependents, etc. Other interview screens and questions may involve financial matters such as wages, retirement plan contributions, and social security, state and federal taxes paid or withheld as provided in Form-W2, charitable contributions, mortgage interest paid, property tax paid, etc. The electronic tax return may also be a business or corporate return with business related income and expense items. After entry of the data, the electronic tax return prepared by the preparation application is formatted as necessary and filed (e.g., electronically filed) with a tax authority such as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), state tax authority, or other tax collecting entity.
While tax preparation applications have been used effectively in the past to prepare and file millions of electronic tax returns with tax authorities, tax preparation applications that rely upon a pre-determined, programmed question-and-answer tree structure are rigid and lack of flexibility in how questions are identified for presentation to users. This pre-determined structure also limits how the tax return preparation application can be modified and expanded.
Further, given the manner in which data is entered into fields of interview screens generated by known tax preparation applications, there may be instances in which a user enters the wrong data or makes an error, but errors may not be identified by the tax preparation application since they may merely provide a field in which data is entered. For example, it is not uncommon for manually entered data to be wrong for various reasons including human error, defective keyboards and issues with programs and files. Human error may involve typographical errors such as pressing the wrong number, pressing a number one too many or one to few times, pressing two keys inadvertently, inserting a comma in the wrong place, inserting a decimal point in the wrong place, or simply entering correctly typed data in the wrong field. Similar errors may be caused by programs or files that do not operate as intended or that have corrupted data or problems with data that is imported from another program or file. Known tax preparation applications may not be able to identify these errors and instead the user must identify them, but they may be subtle and difficult to identify while still having a significant impact on the end result, particularly if there are multiple errors.